Bath coach Toby Booth denies that Leicester fly-half George Ford will be joining the club

Bath coaches, including his father Mike Ford, denied reports that 19-year-old
George Ford, a candidate to be England’s fly-half at the 2015 Rugby World
Cup, will leave Leicester at the end of the season to join Bath.

“We are disappointed by the speculation out there today,” said Booth, who revealed that the club’s coaches had discussed the matter as a group ahead of Bath playing at Wasps’ home, Adams Park. “His father, Mike [Bath’s defensive head coach], should know and he hasn’t signed with us, he wants to stay at Leicester. And George is categoric about that. And that is direct from Mike.”

“George wants to fight it out with Toby Flood because this was a very important period for him in December and January, because he wanted to go head to head with Flood and try to prove himself at Leicester. That’s as far as we know, and I think it is well-documented that there are talks with him to try and renew his contract and as far as we know, he’ll be a Leicester player.

“What he does and the decisions around that are purely based on what he does in January-February when Flood is available.”

It had been suggested that fly-half Ford, who made his Premiership debut aged 16, would join up with his father, who was England defence coach under Martin Johnson and became a first-team coach at the West Country club last summer.

However, former England scrum-half Austin Healey told The Rugby Paper that Ford faces a similar dilemma to Owen Farrell and Charlie Hodgson at Saracens, and that he has the talent to hold an automatic first-choice position at almost any other club in the Premiership.

“There are Premiership clubs crying out for a quality fly-half – Sale and Northampton spring to mind –and it amazes me you have the four best English fly-halves playing for just two clubs,” Healey said.

“I’m all for a bit of competition and beating your opposite number but with players of the calibre of Charlie Hodgson, Owen Farrell, George Ford and Toby Flood all need to be playing every week.

“Put George Ford in Northampton and they would be able to kick on from just being challengers to being a massive force. As a fly-half, more so than any other position, you need to be playing week-in, week-out.

“If you drop out you miss out on patterns within the team and lose some of the understanding you have with other players. Even one week, lots of small things change on the field that you’ll have to re-learn.

"There’s a lot of intricacies and even if your timing is off by a miniscule amount it can make a big difference. “

Ford is recognised as one of the brightest young talents in English rugby and was voted IRB World Junior Player of the Year in 2011.